Various vehicles include internal combustion engines that may include a plurality of fuel injectors that are configured to inject fuel into engine cylinders. For various reasons, a particular fuel injector may malfunction during operation of the engine. For example, a fuel injector may mechanically malfunction by latching (that is, closing and preventing or otherwise restricting fuel from entering into a respective engine cylinder). As another example, a fuel injector may electrically malfunction, such as by being unplugged.
An engine control unit (ECU) is typically coupled to the fuel injectors of an engine and is configured to control operation of the fuel injectors. However, the ECU may not detect or otherwise be aware of a mechanically latched injector. During such latching, the engine may continue to generate power, but at a higher fuel consumption rate. The ECU may detect the higher fuel consumption rate, but is typically unaware of what is causing the increased fuel consumption rate. When the vehicle is serviced, mechanics typically need to examine the fuel injectors to determine whether one or more fuel injectors are faulty, if there is an electrical harness issue, or if the fuel injector is mechanically and electrically sound.
Accordingly, the process of determining the reason for a malfunction within an engine is typically labor and time intensive.
Therefore, a need may exist for a system and method of efficiently and reliably determining a cause of a malfunction of an engine system, and/or a system and method of pinpointing one or more reasons for inefficient operation of an engine system.